


The Way You Look Tonight

by RavenpuffLove



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Nymphadora Tonks Lives, Romance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 09:04:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20654669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenpuffLove/pseuds/RavenpuffLove
Summary: Ron and Hermione are finally getting married. On the big day Harry suddenly sees Tonk's in a new light.





	The Way You Look Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sing-Me-A-Rare Volume 4. 
> 
> ******Runnerup Best Fluff******
> 
> Thank you so much to my beta Hawkers_Alley, who went uncredited for MONTHS because I forgot to update this thing after the winners were announced! The Betaing was absolutely crucial to the success of this piece and she deserves all the love 🖤🖤🖤
> 
> Song Prompt - The Way You Look Tonight - Tony Bennett - My Best Friend's Wedding
> 
> Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Warner Bros. No copyright infringement is intended.

It had taken ten years and an unplanned pregnancy for Ron to gather enough courage to ask Hermione to marry him. There’d been a betting pool going at some point but it dwindled until only Harry and George remained, with George betting on never and Harry’s wager on before they were thirty. Collecting those lol five galleons almost felt better than seeing Voldemort lifeless on the ground. Ron had proceeded to ask Harry to be his best man barely an hour after they’d announced their engagement, and when Harry had agreed,he had honestly assumed that he’d be spending the whole day keeping his best mate from running off on the other. He loved Ron, best mate a bloke could have and more loyal than anyone really understood, but he really did have a history of running under pressure. 

Instead, Harry had spent most of his day keeping Ron from busting into Hermione’s room because he was desperate to see her. The couple had spent the night apart for the first time in so long that Ron barely slept at all the night before. Harry had honestly thought it was very sweet until Ron had tried to apparate two floors up from the twins old rooms at the burrow onto Ginny’s floor and Tonks had done her maid of honor duties and put him out on his arse in the hallway, her face morphed into an uncanny resemblance of Ron’s mother and screaming that the next time she’d put him down the stairs and let the healers sort him out. 

George had slipped a bit of dreamless sleep into Ron’s tea after that and then they’d all played exploding snap while the groom slumped over, snoring in the corner. It was the best decision any of them had made all day. Certainly better than Harry’s idea of tying him to a chair and stealing his wand. That way they wouldn't have to listen to him whine about any injuries. By the time he'd woken up, there hadn't been time for him to worry. He had to get his suit on and get to the little country chapel where they would be having the ceremony. 

Leaving Harry plenty of time to think about how strange this wedding felt. 

They’d all attended plenty of weddings in the years since the war. After losing so much, people wanted to rebuild, to move forward. Harry probably would have been married himself by now had Ginny not taken him refusing to return to Hogwarts so badly. It had worked out in the end though. He was too busy with work and being Teddy's godfather to have missed being in a relationship. There’d been the occasional fling, of course. Being the Boy Who Lived Twice did come with a few perks, not the least of which was having a warm body in his bed whenever he wanted. He just didn’t often care. Besides, it was hard for Ginny to have hard feelings towards him when she’d come home from her first season on the Holyhead Harpies with Cho Chang on her arm, and the two been married within the year. 

Yet somehow, between Ginny and Cho, George and Angelina, Neville and Luna, Percy and Audrey, and countless others, no one had had a muggle ceremony. As much as he loved the couples and weddings he’d been part of, this was the first time Harry felt like he was at a real wedding. He’d been to plenty of handfastings and broom jumpings, but this is the first time he’d get to walk a witch down an aisle. It made everything feel properly romantic.

He was almost nervous, despite the fact that it wasn’t his wedding and the witch he was going to be walking was just Tonks. He’d walked with her plenty of places before. Hardly a day went by when he didn't see her between working together and taking care of Teddy. Tonks wouldn't care if he was sweating, or that his hair was a mess. She'd just make dirty jokes at his expense like always. There was no reason to be nervous. It wasn’t a big deal. Maids of Honor didn’t even normally have ushers evidently, so they wouldn’t even be walking together except Hermione didn’t trust Tonks not to fall over her own feet without an escort. Harry was basically a glorified handrail. 

At least that's what Harry had been telling himself to calm his nerves. Then the girls came around the corner and suddenly the butterflies in his stomach seemed entirely appropriate. 

Hermione looked beautiful. Truly. She wore white,  _ tradition-be-damned _ , and her rounded belly was tenting out the soft gauzy dress until she looked like she was floating. She was one of his oldest friends, and it was her wedding day. He’d been waiting for these two to tie-the-knot for years. 

But she couldn't keep Harry's attention.

Tonks was to her left, and she wasn’t wearing her dirty trainers, or a ripped shirt or the joggers she liked to lounge around the house in on the weekends. She wasn't even wearing the skimpy purple number she liked to bring out for special occasions that Harry had seen on occasion when she dropped Teddy to spend the night at Grimmauld Place. 

Tonks was all in silky black , held up by tiny straps over her shoulders and looking more elegant than Harry would have thought possible for a woman with a penchant for changing her nose into a snout when the mood struck her. But as beautiful as she looked, it wasn’t the dress that had made his heart skip a beat. He knew Tonks could look beautiful. He’d thought she was beautiful bruised and battered and rocking Teddy the day after the battle. He thought she was beautiful doing the shopping with a ratty sweater on and he thought she was beautiful with her hair plastered to her neck with sweat after they’d been running on an auror assignment. She was one of his best friends. She was his partner. She had become his favorite person, and he always thought she looked pretty. Tonks being pretty was normal. 

Tonks with pink hair was breathtaking. It was bright and cheery as bubble gum or candy floss. Pink like it hadn’t been since before Remus died. 

On the best days it was the same bright blue as Teddy’s. On the worst days it a sandy brown that made Harry’s heart ache. Once Tonks spent a month with it as curly and black as her Aunt Bellatrix’s had been. While the look had not been his cup of tea, Harry could admit she’d been truly unrecognizable during their infiltration of a cult trying to resurrect Voldemort. 

It had never once been pink. 

“ Oh, Harry!” Hermione said, shaking him from his reverie by throwing her arms around him. “ Everyone looks so good, and I’m so tired that I’m about ready to call the whole thing off in exchange for a nap.” 

“ You look wonderful, ‘Mione.” Harry said with a smile. “ You can’t help being tired. You’re six months pregnant!” 

“ I mean that’s at least half your fault.” Tonks whispered to Hermione conspiratorially just loud enough that Harry could hear. “ But having been there myself, I fully support blaming Ron for the bad. It’s only fair, seeing as you are the one having to waddle about. Wotcher Harry!” 

" Pair up, the lot of you!" Minerva whispered from her post near the door, gripping Teddy’s hand tightly in hers. " Luna and Neville first, then Ginny and George, and then Harry and Nymphadora. Hermione, your father will be here just directly and I’ve got Teddy here with the flowers to go ahead. " 

Harry offered Tonks his arm, holding back his laughter as she rolled her eyes at their old professor for using her proper name. 

" At least she didn't call me the Widow Lupin." She whispered in his ear once they were linked arm in arm. " The papers called me that in trial coverage last week. It’s like they didn’t notice that I changed my name back just so they’d stop doing that." 

" You look good." Harry said, feeling like it was the right thing to say seeing as he couldn't keep his eyes off her. 

" You clean up alright yourself, Potter." Tonks grinned, looking him up and down and licking her lips. " Proper respectable with your beard all trimmed and the shiny shoes." 

" Haven't seen that color in a long time." He gestured at her hair, watching the way the slight draft from the door ruffled her wispy pink locks. 

" I know! I’ve tried it a few times in the last year, but I couldn't make it happen." She said, smoothing over the short-cropped strands with a wide smile that lit up her face. " I just woke up with it like this today! It always used to go pink when I was happy unless I didn’t want it to." 

" It's a very happy day." 

" It is, innit?" She said peering through the wide doors into the chapel proper. 

The music changed, and they made their way through the doors and down the aisle. The chapel wasn't large. Hermione had insisted they keep it as small as possible, just the the couple’s immediate family and their close friends. 

At the altar Ron stood flanked by Neville and George in front of the registrar. He looked right past them, eyes fastened on the door and face flushed with excitement. At then end of the aisle Harry broke away from Tonks to go stand by his oldest friend, who was all but vibrating with energy. 

" Shoulda done this ages ago, Harry." He whispered, eyes still trained on the door. " Just look at her." 

" She's beautiful." Harry replied, hoping no one noticed his eyes slipping away from Hermione walking down the aisle to glance at Tonks, who was flashing her son a thumbs up as he scattered the colorful flower petals in front of the bride. 

The ceremony was brief. Harry barely registered what had been said, too busy observing the happiness on his friends’ faces to properly listen, but he could tell that it was short and sweet. Hermione and Ron smiled through the ceremony, and Ron had cried from the moment Hermione had reached the altar and taken his hand. Harry found his thoughts wandering as the registrar had the couple recite their vows. 

“ Ron,” Hermione began, her voice thready with emotion. “ People keep asking me if I’m excited to finally be married, and I am so excited to be your wife, but when they ask I just want to tell them we’ve been married since we were eighteen years old. I’ve loved you for a decade, through grief, distance and career changes. Through monotony and unexpected joy. If that isn’t commitment I don’t know what is. . .” 

Harry could almost picture the scenes she referenced: The grief after the final battle with Fred and so many others suddenly gone. The year apart with Hermione at Hogwarts, and then another when ministry work took her overseas and they’d barely seen each other. Ron leaving the Auror program after the flashbacks wouldn’t stop and he wasn’t able to leave his bed until George dragged him into working at the jokeshop. Years of morning kisses and Saturday date nights. Hermione suddenly turning up pregnant despite the use of charms and potions.

Harry had been there. He knew their story because it was his story. It wasn’t exactly the same, but he’d been there with them. It had always been the three of them together. While they’d been falling in love he’d been by their sides, falling into a family. 

He remembered the grief of the final battle when Tonks woke with a scream, inches away from the death pale face of her husband. Teddy had become the most important thing in Harry’s life. It had been easy to decide to start in the auror program and skive off his last year at Hogwarts. He couldn’t imagine not seeing Teddy for long stretches of time. Teddy changed so fast, and not because he was a metamorphmagus. The boy was less than a year old. Everything was a first. If Harry wasn’t there he could miss something important. So he worked hard, chasing death eaters that hadn’t been rounded up at the final battle and new pockets of hatred and violence. Eventually he came home to Grimmauld place and spent his evenings cooking dinner for Ron, Hermione, and usually Tonks and Teddy who often flooed in for meals to give Andromeda time to herself. Growing up with the Dursleys, Harry never would never have imagined that cooking for anyone could be the highlight of his day. But it wasn’t a chore or drudgery to take care of them. He loved them every minute, they were his family. Hermione was right, if that wasn’t commitment he didn’t know what was. 

“ Hermione,” Ron said, suddenly breaking Harry’s stroll down memory lane. “ I wish I could say I had always known you were the one, but I was a bit slow coming around. All I know is that one day I saw you and I just knew. Your hair was a mess and you had ink on your nose, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. It took me another year to gather up the courage to kiss you but that was the day I knew. . .” 

Harry felt his eyes lock onto Tonks. She was listening intently to Ron and shuffling her feet nervously. She was never quite still, always moving something, somehow. On assignments when they had to keep quiet or still she was miserable. After she’d caught him watching her slowly elongating and diminishing the tips of her ears during a stakeout she’d told him that she thought boredom was worse torture than the cruciatus. Having experienced both in spades, Harry couldn’t disagree. 

Harry wasn’t sure how long he’d been watching her fidget when her eyes wandered away from the couple and she caught him staring. She winked and gave him a wicked grin, jerking her head in the direction of the ceremony, where the officiant was ready to say the words everyone had been waiting for. 

“ I now pronounce you Husband and Wife. You may kiss the bride!” 

Harry had to have seen Ron and Hermione kiss a hundred times. He’d seen her jump up into Ron’s arms and slam her lips on his when she’d returned from Hogwarts for the last time. He’d seen Ron drop quick kisses that barely caught her mouth when he’d been rushing off to catch a Cannons match. Harry had seen them so drunk on New Year’s Eve that their midnight kiss had almost turned into much more on his sitting room couch.Their first kiss as a married couple was somehow exactly like their first kiss had been, despite the lack of basilisk fangs and surrounding sounds of battle. They came together like magnets, destined to crash together as soon as nothing was holding them apart. 

The little chapel erupted in celebration as they broke apart, and the registrar introduced them as Mister Ronald Weasley and Missus Hermione Weasley. The muggles threw handfuls of flower petals, and somehow half the magical crowd were throwing off sparks without ever pulling their out their wands. 

“ The reception is in the banquet hall across the street!” Hermione yelled over the crowd. “ Go on ahead. Pregnant ladies are slow and I’m not rushing for the lot of you!” 

“ Walk with me, Potter.” Tonks sidled up to him and threaded an arm through his. “ I don’t want to fall in the gutter, and Teddy’s already ran off after Victoire.” 

“ Alright. Can’t have you out of commission again. Last time you somehow fell down some stairs it took them two days to put you back together, and you know Williamson eats fish and chips every day and doesn’t bring any stringmints for after.”

“ You might’ve mentioned that once or twice.” She said, rolling her eyes. 

“ It stinks.” He replied. 

“ I saw some badges that claimed the same about you once.” 

“ How do you know every embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me?” Harry groaned. If he never had to think about Malfoy or those ridiculous badges again, it would be too soon. 

“ I’ve known you for 13 years, and Ron likes to make fun of you when he’s in his cups.” She reminded him. As if he could ever forget how many times his friend had recounted the fateful story of Harry’s disastrous date with Cho. “ Also, you’re unfortunately famous. People love to talk about you like you’re important or something.” 

“ I hate that about me.”

“ I hate that about you, too.” She replied. “ I much prefer your arse.” 

Andromeda was waiting for them just inside the banquet hall doors. 

“ There you two are. I just wanted to tell you I’m going to take Teddy back to mine after the cake. Victoire and little Freddy, too. They all came up whining about a sleepover and I couldn’t say no. Besides, I never get my grandbaby to myself. Soon he’ll be off to Hogwarts and I’ll hardly ever see him at all.” She rambled as they wandered to the big family table. 

“ Fine, Mum!” Tonks said with an exaggerated sigh. “ I guess I’ll just have to enjoy an evening of drinking and a morning of sleeping in late. You’ve ripped out my heart!” 

They were seated just to Ron’s right at the table and as soon as they sat down they were swept up in the bustle of the wedding party. Every guest wanted to compliment to the bride and groom. Sitting in the thick of things with the family didn’t leave much time for talking amongst themselves. Between fielding the questions of when one of them was going to jump the broom and accepting whispered thanks for saving the wizarding world there was barely time to get in a few bites of their first food since breakfast. 

Tonks looked paler and paler as the evening wore on. She dropped every sixth bite into her lap, and had managed to dribble wine onto the sleeve of Harry’s suit jacket more than once. It was more than her legendary clumsiness. Her hands shook slightly. A strand of blanched white was spreading from her left temple. She was nervous, and Harry was almost certain he knew why. 

“ I’m going to take off.” He said to Ron after watching Tonks nearly choke on a bit of wedding cake. “ I need to get Tonks out of here before she puts her fork in her eye or sets the table on fire.” 

“ I only wish you were taking me with you.” Ron said with a grimace, pulling Harry into a quick one armed hug.. “ Nobody will let me bloody eat! Say bye to ‘Mione before you leave or she’ll go into early labor.” 

Harry leaned over and whispered to Tonks, “ Meet me out back in five minutes.” Before standing and coming around to kneel between Hermione and Luna. 

“ Hermione, I’m so happy for the two of you. It was a wonderful wedding, but I think I’m going to run off early with Tonks.” He said, giving her a gentle hug around her waist. 

“ Dancing?” She asked, a small understanding smile on her lips. 

“ Yeah.” 

“ I figured. “ Hermione said, squeezing him tight. “ And I know you hate being the center of attention. You’ve been such a help with the wedding,Harry. Enjoy the rest of the evening. We’ll see the two of you after the honeymoon.” 

With that, Harry made his way out the back of the restaurant to the secluded alleyway that he’d scouted as a good apparatation point. Tonks followed after a few moments. 

“ Wotcher, Harry.” She said, still looking a bit peaked. “ Why’d you want me to come out here? Smells awful.” 

“ That’s why it’s safe to apparate from here. The kitchen door is around that corner, and there’s about eight bins blocking the view” He said, giving her a shy grin. “ Let’s get out of here. The dancing is about to start and it’s making you so nervous the clumsiness is becoming a health risk. Hermione and Ron send their best, and I’ve got a bottle of Ogden’s finest waiting back at Grimmauld.” 

She was gone with a crack almost before he could finish offering her the out. 

Apparating into his kitchen to find Tonks rifling through his drink cabinet in an evening gown was a pleasant twist on a familiar site. 

“ You said you had a bottle of firewhiskey. This is a couple of glasses at best.” She said, her head still stuck in the cabinet. “ I feel cheated.” 

“ Do we really need a whole bottle tonight?” He asked, coming to lean on the counter next to her. “ I got you out of there before the dancing.” 

“ Ah” Tonks replied with a tone that remarkably resembled Dumbledore’s when he was about to say something truly absurd. “ But not before I’d thought about the dancing.” 

She took a deep swig straight from the bottle, and Harry reached out to grab it from her before she could drink the whole thing. He’d seen her shoot more than that when she was nervous. Somehow, she jerked out of the way, and his hand never connected with the bottle. He pitched forward, so off balance so that he fell forward and had to catch himself on the counter, leaving him incredibly close as she lifted an eyebrow and lowered the bottle. 

They’d been this close many times: fishing Teddy out of strange hiding places during his first bursts of accidental magic, squeezed into booths on nights out to the pub, every day when she tripped over her own feet and Harry had to catch her. They lives were so intertwined that it was impossible not to get physically close, but Harry felt like this closeness was filled with a new kind of intimacy. Maybe it was the pink hair, or the fact that her cheeks were flushed to match it, but he suddenly noticed how the flecks in her dark eyes weren’t just one color. They were an impossibly seamless blend of gold, and green, and blue, and violet, and grey, and warm chocolatey brown. 

“ Tonks,” He asked. “ What color are your eyes?” 

“ When I’m not trying they look like this. They don’t shift around on their own as much as my hair.” She answered, looking up at him like maybe she shouldn’t let him have any of the remaining whiskey. “ No idea what to call it besides dark, they always give me trouble about it when I have to update my ministry ID card.” 

“ I want to kiss you.” He said after a moment, finally letting himself feel the desire that had been bubbling just beneath the surface all night. 

Harry couldn’t deny it. He had thought about her that way before- he’d have to be dead not to. She was beautiful and outrageous; and sometimes she slept on his couch in nothing but a long black shirt when Teddy was out and she didn’t want to be alone in her house. But the guilt never let the thoughts wander too far. She was Remus’s widow. The man had been like a father to him. His godson’s mother. His partner. His friend. It was wrong to think of her that way, even if she had been flirting with him shamelessly since he’d grown out his beard. 

But tonight he couldn’t stop. 

Tonks looked genuinely shocked. It was an emotion Harry wasn’t used to seeing on her face. For a heart-stopping moment he worried he’d taken a risk and made things terribly awkward between them, but it only lingered for a moment before she twisted against him to set the bottle on the counter. 

“ I’m glad you said something before the firewhiskey could kick in, Harry.” She said, tentatively threading her arms around his shoulders. “ I’d hate for you to think I said yes because I’m drunk.” 

Harry closed the few inches distance between them, desperately wishing he wasn’t still wearing his stuffy suit and tie so he could feel the slick fabric of her dress with more than just his hand on her waist. 

“ I know you can hold your liquor, Dora.” He whispered before pressing his lips against hers. Using her first name almost as thrilling as the silky feel of her lips. It was intimate, just like the scent of whiskey that lingered on her breath.

She kissed like he was something she wanted to eat, sliding her tongue along the seam of his lips and nipping him with her teeth. Her hands pulled hard on the back of his neck, fingertips tugging gently through his hair and keeping him so close that there was no telling where her lips ended and his began. 

Harry could lose himself in this kiss forever. It felt just like flying. His stomach dropped pleasantly, and his heart pounded in his ears. He let his hands roam, bunching the fabric of her dress around her hips as he hauled her up onto the counter and stepped between her legs. Lightly scraping his teeth over her lower lip made her let out a tiny muffled moan that he wanted to hear over and over again. Her hands slipped into his jacket, shoving it off his shoulders so he could shrug it off, leaving his shirt warm where her palms had pressed against him. Yes, touching her was just like flying. As soon as he was in the air,he didn’t want to stop. He didn’t want to play it safe. He wanted to do barrel rolls, speed straight into the clouds and let himself free fall. 

He dropped his hands to the bare legs on either side of him, fingers spread while his thumbs ghosted over the soft skin of her inner thighs as he inched towards her hips. 

" Still game?" He whispered softly against her lips as his fingertips dipped under the bunched hem of her dress, hoping she said yes because if she didn’t it might be what finally managed to kill him. 

Dora nodded, pressing her lips back onto his and hastily working at the knot in his tie. 

Harry slipped a hand under the dress, groaning as his fingers grazed soft hair and nothing else. No knickers. Of course Dora wouldn’t wear knickers. To a wedding. In a church. He loved this woman. She made him so hard he wanted to press up against her like a randy teenager, but he kept his hips carefully pulled back and simply focused on the feel of her in his hand. It had been a while, and he wasn’t going to risk embarrassing himself by coming in his trousers before she could get off. She let out that sweet sound again as he slipped two fingers into her. She was the wettest thing he’d ever felt, and when he brushed his thumb against her clit her hips jerked so hard against him he thought she might come undone right then. He curled his fingers hard inside her and rubbed his thumb over her clit until she broke their kiss and dropped her head to his shoulder, face turned into his neck and every breath coming with soft, almost pained sounds. Her fingers were still half tangled in his loosened tie, gripping the fabric for dear life. 

Suddenly she had him in a vice. Her thighs squeezed tight against him and her cunt pulsed around his fingers as she came, whispering “ fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” against the crook of his neck. 

Harry withdrew his hand slowly, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against him. He held her there, enjoying the new kind of closeness that settled around them while he stroked her shivering back and her breathing slowed. 

“ Merlin’s tits I’ve been waiting for this for almost three years.” She finally said, letting out a breathy chuckle. “ You’re always looking at me like I’m your best friend, even when my arse is hanging out of a t-shirt in your kitchen. What finally got through to you?” 

“ I don’t know.” He replied after a moment, eyes closed and face buried in her soft, sweet-smelling hair. “ Just the way you look tonight.” 


End file.
